Friday, September 29, 2000

I really don't feel like packing. It's just about time to break down the pc and get it into boxes. I can put it off a little longer though. I'm thinking about going to a matinee of Remember the Titans and packing later.

It's probably tragically un-hip to get all psyched-up when Mark Knopfler is on Letterman, but there you have it. Last night I flipped to Letterman, which I've watched twice in the last year, just in time to see Knopfler doing a song from his new album. Knopfler has aged. He looks Tommy Lasorda these days. He still plays the same though. Nothing revelatory about his guitar work, just the same old great sound. There are guest turns on the new album by Van Morrison, Difford and Tillbrook (Squeeze), and ... James, erm, Taylor. Like I said, tragically un-hip.

Wednesday, September 27, 2000

There's a scene in High Fidelity where Rob explains his autobiographical record cataloguing system to Dick and Dick groks what an undertaking that is. It's a funny scene. I've never shelved my books alphabetically, there's always a system or a couple of systems at work that make perfect sense to me, but would make it difficult for anyone else to find a particular book in my collection. For instance, if I want to find Crowley's Little, Big, I know that I have to go the shelf for "sci-fi/fantasy books of marginal interest I bought prior to 1995, didn't get to, or, started to read and didn't get far enough into to that I felt like had to finish right away, so I put them aside for something more interesting and haven't gotten around to but think I probably will when I'm in a budgetarily enforced book buying lull and don't feel like re-reading a classic." Finding I used the receipt as a bookmark (page 45, I must've started it right away and only put a half hour or so into it) is kind of neat on the personal/archeological level. I know now I was in Boston on January 18, 1992 at 5pm in a bookstore on Newbury St. Now that I've finally read Sterling's Heavy Weather I can move it from it's old spot next to Crowley and put it with the the Gibson and Attanasio books in "overrated author/sci-fi" in the "signed/hardcover" subsection. This'll be a lot easier when everything I own isn't in boxes.

Poké-Friends. Great concept for a blog. The first link posted by Jigglypuff on 9/27 is to a hilarious message board string. Bulbasaur's keen intellect and deft hand at satire really come through in his writing. (found via TU)

I was able to find out at NBC's Olympics site that Kong Linghui of China won the individual Table Tennis gold, but I can't for the life of me figure out when or if any of the table tennis matches will be shown on tv here in the U.S. I can watch two guys kneeling in canoes. I wish NBC didn't have the sole rights to Olympic coverage. It would have been so much better for us if all the networks had been able to have some coverage. Stupid NBC. Guys kneeling in canoes indeed.

Saturday Morning TV Schedules of the 70s. Flashback to: the floating island in the background of every scene of Tarzan swinging through the trees bugging the heck out of me. No matter where he went in the jungle, he was always swinging across that thing.

Reading a little more about the Casey Martin case at CNNSI.com the argument advanced by Martin's attorney cites "a provision of the ADA that bans discrimination on the basis of disability 'in the full enjoyment of ... facilities ... of any place of public accommodation.' The law's definition of public accommodation includes recreational places such as golf courses." I don't think this is a strong argument. The PGA isn't saying Martin can't use a golf cart to play golf anywhere at any time, just not in the course of one of their events. I'm more certain now that Martin will lose. It's a shame. It doesn't hurt the game to have him play with a cart. I'm not denying that walking the course isn't part of the competition, it'll tire out big fat guys. It's not like it's that hard though. These guys aren't carrying their own bags. I get exhausted playing 18 holes, but I carry my bag and it's full of beer and ice and it's heavy! Wusses, pro golfers are wusses.

The Annotated Dennis Miller is back with a new installment. My favorite Miller moment last night was when, late in the game, he was alerted to an upcoming booth shot and had to hastily re-knot his tie and try to tuck in his shirt: "It's late for a booth shot! I was almost in my footsie jammies."

The Supreme Court will hear the PGA's case to prevent Casey Martin from using a cart on the tour. Casey had previously sued under the Americans With Disabilities Act to be able to use a cart due to a degenerative condition in legs/hips. I have to think Martin will lose the case. I may be misreading the law, but it seems like the PGA is more a private club as described in section 307 than an employer with regard to golfers on tour. Personally, I'd like to see the PGA grant Martin an exception due to the nature of his condition. I don't think allowing him to use a cart gives him an unsportsmanlike advantage over the other golfers. Martin will, if his condition does not put him in a wheelchair, be able to play on the Senior tour where the golfers are allowed to use carts. It's not like an adverse ruling would necessarily keep him out of golf forever. I think it would be a classy thing for a guy like Tiger, Els, or Duval to speak up for Martin though. I remember seeing Martin at the GHO in Cromwell this summer and I really felt for him. It was obviously causing him a great deal of pain just to walk the short distance from the cart path to the tee box. I find it hard to believe the guys who play on tour with him feel like he has an unfair advantage over them. If they do, they're a bunch of wusses.

Lots of fawning over Vince Carter for jumping over a (crouching) 7 footer to dunk on him. Yeah, that's great, but you know what? I'm not going to watch a bunch of millionaires pump their fists and dance around after they beat up on the Lithuanian National Team. Play the anthem, wrap them in flags, shoot them in soft focus and they're still NBA players playing in a CBA-caliber tournament. Ringers. To the extent I'm watching the Olympics, I'm pulling for the American atheletes -- with the exception of the basketball team. I hope they lose. I like both Vin Baker and Ray Allen. If this were 1992, I would be cheering for them to bring home a medal. They don't belong in Sydney.

Monday, September 25, 2000

Continuing in my defense, I read a lot of Heinlein when I was younger. Actually, all of it up to and including Grumbles from the Grave, though none of the posthumous stuff since. Read Time Enough For Love and To Sail Beyond the Sunset when you're just a kid and there's no end to the weird ass stuff you'll think makes perfect sense.

FOXSports.com - NBA - Report: Celtics' Pierce stabbed outside nightclub: If I were a pro athelete (I hear your chuckling, quit it) ... anyways, if I were, I think I'd stay away from nightclubs. They're nothing but trouble for these guys. Ah heck, who'm I kidding? If I were a pro athelete, I'd be at nightclubs every night counting on my entourage of coke snorting bodyguards to watch my back while Keyshawn and I picked fights with guys we're pretty sure we could beat the crap out of, like Wayne Chrebet.

Tuesday, September 19, 2000

It doesn't look like there have been any updates to the page since I first found it via IGN.com two years ago but I still get a nostalgia kick out of visiting it every so often. I remember thinking the show was so cool when I was a kid. I used to get up at 6:00am to watch it before school. Then, I made the mistake of renting a few tapes after first finding the site. They were pretty bad. Kinda spoiled the memory.

Off the Reuters wire: Energy Secretary Says Oil Prices 'Dangerously High'. For some reason, when I first read the headline I thought it said, "Energy Secretary 'Dangerously High'." I thought the article was going to be about how the Energy Secretary (turns out his name is Bill Richardson) had been found in a janitor's closet down the hall from his office furiously taking hits off a 4-foot bong. I expected to see a quote from an under-secretary along the lines of "the President asked for a recommendation with regard to releasing some of the Strategic Reserves and Richardson was like, 'Dude, release the hounds!' He was really stoned." The article, of course, has nothing of the sort; however, I'm sure it's very important.

Sunday, September 17, 2000

Baldwins Will Leave if Bush Wins: The anti-Baldwin jokes would be easy to make here, but I liked Miami Blues and Glengarry Glen Ross so I'm going to go easy on Alec. I don't see little brother Stephen though pulling off the hepcat expatriate act sitting at some Parisian cafe, a heavily underlined reading copy of "The Sun Also Rises" in front of him (grease-spot stained from the croissant detritus shooting out his mouth as he chews open-mouthed) trying to explain to a disinterested waitress that he played Barney Rubble in "The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas" in broken French.

Peter at I Shoot With My Mind makes a good point about the chief flaw with Sports Night being the relationship trap. Still, they were working around that towards the end with the new source of tension being the impending sale of CSN. If Sorkin did realize the mating dances weren't what the show needed, that could have been easily fixed. They did a great job with episodes about hunting/guns, the after-effects of their boss's stroke, debating whether or not to sell-out their journalistic principles in order to interview Jordan, etc. They had a great knack for pointing out how sports can be used to frame discussions about more important topics. That show should have lived long enough to get through it's early missteps. There's just something about The West Wing that I don't like as much, an off-key vibe that I didn't get from SN. Part of the problem is certainly Rob Lowe. The guy gives me the creeps. There's something smug and disingenuous about his acting style that makes me think he's still videotaping sexcapades with high school girls, but is taking more precautions these days. It worked for him in Tommy Boy, where he did a nice job hosing off a mud-covered, flashdancing Chris Farley, but I can't take him as a "good guy" in TWW's neo-Camelot. My take on TWW is based on only two viewings, so I don't have a lot to go on, but I got a sense the creators were looking to tap into something Kennedy-esque to make a point about where politics should be vs. where it is. That strikes me as either naive or cynical. We don't need more Kennedys, we need more Naders. I did like the writing and the interplay between the characters, it was like a slightly watered-down version of the more stylized dialogue in SN. I'm sure that with the new season starting soon, I'll start watching it. I just hope isn't slotted against the new Oliver Platt series or Gideon's Crossing, which both look promising.

To Bobby Knight's, err, I mean Mr. Knight's credit, he did one thing right in addressing the students at IU last night. He asked them not to blame the freshman who addressed him as "Knight" for his being fired. He was a lot classier addressing the students than he was in the Schapp interview the other day. Still, it's funny how his trouble is all the university's fault in his mind. For such a controlling person, he doesn't seem to want to accept any responsibility for his own behavior

I'm not perfect and I'm not judging. This is just one of the most common spelling mistakes I see otherwise capable writers making in their blogs. Here's a short list of frequently botched words that includes "definite" & "recommend."

Saturday, September 9, 2000

"Way of the Gun" is a great action movie that reminded me, in parts, of "Blood Simple", "Red Rock West", and "L.A. Confidential" (this is more of a stretch, but I thought it had Ellroy-esque dialogue at times and a similar degree of complexity in plotting). Tentatively, I'm calling it the best movie I've seen this year.

"Nurse Betty" didn't do quite as much for me. Chris Rock and Morgan Freeman did a great job, but I was surprised how mainstreamy it was. I went in thinking the previews had been deliberately slanted to make it look like a feel-good romantic comedy to trick folks into going who would've stayed away in droves if it had been publicized as a movie by the guy who made "In the Company of Men." Turns out, it actually was (for the most part) a feel-good romantic comedy. Edgier than other Kinnear movies, "Sabrina" for instance, but nowhere near as dark as I'd expected. Chris Rock was hilarious though.

Since Bone Daddy wrote that bit about singing to his daughter, we've gotten about two hits a day from Google by people looking up lyrics for that "My Darling Clementine" song. Is there really that much burning curiosity about the lyrics to "Clementine"? Are people bursting out in song at their local pubs, getting through the first verse, coming to a mumbling halt, then running home to look the lyrics up online? I figured we'd be getting tons of hits from people looking for pictures of Anna Kournikova, or Jennifer Lopez's rack, or El Guapo's midriff -- not that we've got any of that stuff -- but I'm sure they've been mentioned in passing at some point. Go figure.

Thursday, September 7, 2000

Gross story, but true: I was out mowing the lawn last night and a bug flew in my eye. It was irritating as hell, but I couldn't get the thing out. After finishing the lawn, I didn't notice it anymore and forgot about it. This morning at work both my eyes were itchy and irritated like they are everyday on account of all the dusty old files piled around my desk. I'm talking to Carolyn and rubbing my eyes and suddenly she says, "what the hell just floated across your eye?" She grabs my head and starts looking around my eye. Nothing there though. I figure she's overworked and seeing things. About an hour later, I'm rubbing my eyes and when I pull my hand away from my left eye, there's something dark on my hand. Closer look: dead bug. Damn thing had been floating around in my eye all night and half the morning. I'm eye squeamish, always have been ... can't even put drops in my eyes. That almost made me throw up.

Tuesday, September 5, 2000

Salon.com: 3 yards and a cloud of baloney. An article about how vapid most commentator-speak is. Posting this by way of supporting the idea of Dennis Miller on MNF, one less ex-coach brainwashed into blathering the same old cliches. Problem with the article: Myth 1 debunked is "defense wins games"; then, in debunking Myth 4 " ... the Bucs got into the playoffs on the strength of their defense ..."

Sunday, September 3, 2000

Zoiks, now I feel really bad. My comments on SurvivorBlog got posted over there. (I called it "lame.") The thing is though, I look around at our amateurish layout, grammatical and spelling errors, and feel more than a little insecure about what I do here. Now, I feel mean for dogging another site which, by the way, has a much nicer layout than our's and feel like I should try to qualify my comments a little bit. When I looked over there, all I read were posts about other posts and the few links I followed were boring. (Boring to me, I should probably say.) Based on the posts I read, it seemed like the format was limiting the posts to self-referential blah, blah, blah-ing. I'm sure the bloggers over there are intelligent, good-hearted people who deserve better than to have their work called "lame."

Saturday, September 2, 2000

Well, there isn't a box score at ESPN yet to link to, but UConn just wrapped up their first game as a 1A football team. 21 point underdogs to Eastern Michigan, they lost 32-25 in a game that they very well could have won. A few key errors (a penalty on fourth down play, a fumbled punt return, and a late interception) ruined their chances, but those kinds of mistakes are, hopefully, the kind of thing good coaching will cut down on over the course of the season. The good news was they didn't appear overmatched. Sure, EMU is a MAC team, hardly one of your powerhouse conferences, but Toledo humiliated Penn State tonight and Western Michigan gave #5 Wisconsin (will the Shoebox be their downfall?) a run for their money. Huskies showed promise tonight: QB Ryan Tracey threw for 340 yards and 3 TDs, the INT was a killer, but he could be decent QB. Bad news: they rushed for 62 yards on 25 carries for a 2.5 yard/carry average against a Terwilliger Q. Pantywaist-type defense. (I have no idea what that means either, it was just the feyest name I could think of on the spur of the moment.)

Someone asked if our friendship could survive a SurvivorBlog format. I'm sure we could, but I'm not sure TC would. SurvivorBlog is lame. It wasn't really a good idea for a tv show, the evidence indicates it's not so good an idea for a website either.

Empire Avenue

About Me

Blogging primarily about Doctor Who while I watch (and re-watch) the entire series.

Sure, I could have chosen any number of other shows to bounce my interest in philosophy, history, progressive politics, secularism, and pop culture off; but, while others have burned brighter for periods of time, no other series has held my interest for so long. Nor is another likely to.